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Cyclone Phailin leaves trail of destruction across eastern India

Updated
Mon 14 Oct 2013, 3:07 AM AEDT

Photo

A boy cycles past debris after Cyclone Phailin hit Rangailunda village in Ganjam district in the eastern Indian state of Orissa October 13, 2013. India's strongest storm in 14 years left a trail of destruction along the country's east coast on Sunday.

Reuters

Relief and rescue operations are in full swing in eastern India which was battered over the weekend by the most powerful cyclone to hit in many years.

The death toll from Cyclone Phailin has risen to 14 and widespread destruction has been reported in many areas.

"There are 13 deaths in Orissa and one death reported in Andhra Pradesh," vice chairman of the National Disaster Management Authority Marri Shashidhar Reddy told reporters.

"We have been able to (keep) the death toll to a bare minimum,"

Mr Reddy told reporters in New Delhi that hundreds of kilometres of roads have already been cleared of trees and other debris.

He says his agency has done an excellent job despite what he claimed to be the the exaggerated manner of international agencies portraying the cyclone and disaster.

Mr Reddy made the comments after foreign meteorologists had warned before the storm hit of higher wind speeds and greater damage than Indian weather forecasters were predicting.

The cyclone is the biggest to hit India in 14 years, and around one million people were evacuated and forced to take refuge in shelters and public buildings as the cyclone flattened flimsy homes and uprooted trees.

Cyclone Phailin packed winds of more than 200 kilometres an hour as it made landfall from the Bay of Bengal, tearing apart dwellings and uprooting trees, but it lost momentum as it headed inland and was expected to dissipate with about 36 hours

Daybreak on Sunday revealed the trail of destruction left behind, but the loss of life appeared limited as many people took cover in shelters.

At least 550,000 people in the states of Orissa and Andhra Pradesh spent the night in shelters, some of which were built after a storm killed 10,000 in the same area in 1999.

Others took refuge in schools or temples, in what the National Disaster Management Authority called one of India's largest evacuations.

There had been concern for 18 fishermen who had been out at sea as the cyclone bore down on the coast, but police said on Sunday that all of them had returned safely.

The cyclone was one of three major storms over Asia on Sunday. The smaller Typhoon Nari was approaching Vietnam and Typhoon Wipha loomed over the Pacific.

Truck driver Jayaram Yadav, who had been transporting eight cars halfway across India, huddled in the cab of his 28-tonne vehicle as wind howled around him on Saturday night.

"I was just thinking: it's going to topple over - and then it did," said Mr Yadav, who survived unscathed as his cargo of vehicles was scattered across a coastal highway.

Television images showed cars flipped on their sides and debris-strewn streets in the silk-producing city of Brahmapur, one of the hardest hit areas.

A few trucks and motorbikes returned to city streets as residents emerged to survey the damage.

"Pretty severe"

Winds slowed to 90 km/h early on Sunday and the rain eased but large swathes of Orissa, including its capital, Bhubaneshwar, were without electricity for a second day after the storm pulled down power cables.

Soldiers and rescue workers in helicopters, boats and trucks fanned out across the two states.